Santa Monica Chapel: where Pope Leo XIV was ordered priest

A recent report by Ewtn News makes a tour of the Chapel of Santa Monica, in Rome, and explains the importance of this place in the life of Pope Leo XIV, because there was ordered priest in 1982.

Located next to the Agustina Curia, where young Robert Prevost lived and studied, this chapel became a decisive space for his vocation. Decades later, in 2023, when Pope Francis created him Cardinal, he was assigned precisely as a titular church.

Fr. Ángelo de Iberardino, who lived with him in those years, He remembered Ewtn News: “When the young Prevost came here, I lived in this place. He was not yet a priest, but we lived for a few years. He graduated in Canon Law at the Pontifical University Santo Tomás, and then returned to the United States and then to Peru. But every time he returned, he stayed here.”

The priest also explained how the Augustinians arrived at this site: “At the end of the ninth century they moved from the church of San Agustín in Rome, where Santa Monica’s body is located. They came here and this house became the international residence of the Augustinians.”

The current chapel was designed by the architect Giuseppe Momo and concluded in 1941. Today it serves both the Augustinians who work at the International College of the Order and the General Curia.

The devotion to Santa Monica, mother of St. Augustine of Hippo, has marked the spiritual life of Pope Leo XIV. In fact, relics of the Holy are part of the pectoral cross that has been from its episcopal ministry.

“Santa Monica was a great woman who today stands out as a maternity model, model of women fighting in her conjugal home, with her husbands or with her children,” said Fr. Iberardino.

Nigerian priest Eduard Dahlen, who lived in this chapel for six years under the guidance of the then superior Agustino Robert Prevost, said: “She dedicated her life to her son’s conversion, allowing her to become one of the most important saints of the Church, and also accompanied the path of Pope León to the papacy.”

Finally he recalled the words of Leo XIV after being chosen: “He said the day he went to the central lodge: ‘I am Augustine, son of St. Augustine’. There is nothing more wonderful for the order. We are grateful that, through the spirituality of St. Augustine, the Church has received this gift.”

Santa Monica Life

Santa Monica (331-387) is remembered as an example of faith, patience and maternal love. Married to Patricio, a pagan man who later became Christianity, knew how to face family difficulties, including the education of his children, the infidelities of her husband and the crisis of faith of Agustín.

His life was marked by constant prayer and the tears offered to God for his son’s conversion. That yearning was fulfilled on the night of April 24, 387, when Agustín received the baptism from San Ambrosio in Milan.

A few days later, in Ostia Tiberina, after a spiritual dialogue with his Son, he said: “The Lord has granted me more than I asked.” With that certainty, he left for the father’s house at age 56.

For her strength and faithfulness, the Church remembers her as “mother courage”, a model for all Christian women and mothers who, in the midst of evidence, fight with love and faith for the good of their families.